Daily Archives: March 11, 2020

President Donald Trump leads a press briefing on the administration response to the coronavirus at the White House in Washington, D.C, March 9, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)Sometimes, a disruptor-in-chief is the last thing you want.

Capital just wants to be loved to be in a steady, supportive relationship with a reliable partner.

Justin Trudeau is not that partner. Not as far as Teck Resources is concerned, anyway. In late February, the company walked away from a multibillion-dollar deal to develop an energy project in the fruitful Canadian oil sands. The problem, as the Wall Street Journal reports, was political uncertainty about oil-and-gas development in the resource-rich country.

Canadas oil and gas is mostly in its west, but the political power is in the east, and the two do not see eye-to-eye. The project has landed squarely at the nexus of a much broader national discussion on energy development, Indigenous reconciliation and, of course, climate change, the CEO said in an announcement to investors. We are stepping back to allow Canada to have this important discussion without a looming regulatory deadline for just one project. Thats the nice Canadian way of saying, Maybe well be back when you clowns get your act together. The company worried with good reason that any favorable decision about its project might prove short-lived, with Justin Trudeaus center-left government too easily bullied into submission.

If you do not have some confidence in the regulatory environment, the tax environment, or the legal environment, it is difficult to make intelligent long-term investments.

Uncertainty is expensive.

The big uncertainty news on Wall Street is that stocks have hemorrhaged (as of the closing bell Monday) almost 20 percent of their value since February. The problem is the coronavirus when Shanghai gets a cold, Wall Street sneezes. And when Wall Street sneezes, Washington gets nervous. My National Review colleague Michael Brendan Dougherty writes:

Some of Trumps self-appointed surrogates in the media, such as Rush Limbaugh, declared fears of coronavirus were being weaponized by the media to scare Wall Street and hurt Trumps re-election. The word hoax keeps popping up across social media among his defenders. Trump seemed to take a Wall Street First approach to the potential pandemic, sending White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow out onto television and instructing people tobuy the dip.

As I write this, Sean Hannity is on the radio, sounding like a man on a pogo stick and engaging in some serious hand-waving over President Donald Trumps performance, complaining that the Democrats are acting as though the president cooked up the virus in a lab with the Kremlin bio-terror team. Thats the word from the Oval Office: Not my fault! The buck doesnt stop here anymore.

Captain Chaos has been on Twitter, sneering and snorting and hectoring, and firing his chief of staff for the third time, and, inexplicably, sharing a meme depicting himself as Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Who knows what this means, but it sounds good to me! he wrote.

Lots of people know, Mr. President just not you.

When Trump ran for president in 2016, there was a great deal of bold talk about building a wall, getting control of the borders, and deporting remember this? every single illegal immigrant residing in these United States. (We would, the candidate promised, reimport the terrific ones.) None of that happened, of course, and the president did not even bother to organize the introduction of a bill, or even to suggest the rough outline of one, implementing his immigration priorities during the time when his party controlled both houses of Congress and might have enacted practically anything it wanted to. (What Republicans wanted to enact and did enact is what they always want to enact: an irresponsible tax cut.) Trump as a candidate presented this as a matter of economics (illegals stealing our jobs!) and crime (rapists!) and related concerns. He did not talk much about achieving meaningful border security as a matter of public health. As it turns out, that may be the most important aspect of the issue.

Sometimes, a disruptor-in-chief is the thing you want. Sometimes, a disruptor-in-chief is the last thing you want.

What will the U.S. government under the leadership of Donald Trump do in response to the coronavirus as the outbreak grows? Nobody knows. Donald Trump will be the last to know. Why would anybody bother telling him? Will the response be effective and competently administered? JFK and LAX are chaos on an ordinary Monday morning, our borders remain porous in spite of all the big talk, and our enforcement of compliance with visas is, in effect, nonexistent. We have cities full of people, many of them children, who havent been inoculated against ordinary diseases because they have fruity ideas about vaccines ideas that have been spread by, among others, Donald Trump. And, of course, we were already running a $1 trillion deficit without a public-health emergency on our hands because we refuse to prioritize and to say No when doing so is politically painful.

That is the kind of leadership we have. This is not uniquely the fault of Donald J. Trump of The Apprentice and Playboy Video Centerfold, who until this recent turnaround was boasting about the performance of the stock markets as a referendum on his leadership. But he is not exactly rising to the present challenge in a persuasive way, either.

And so what we have is uncertainty. That uncertainty has cost businesses and investors about $3.5 trillion in the past couple of weeks.

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Uncertainty in the Age of Pandemic - National Review

The biggest threat to Donald Trumps re-election in 2020 may be COVID-19.

The spread of the novel coronavirus is shaping up as a test of Trumps core pitch to voters: that they are better off than they were when he took office. Sharp drops in the stock market, school and office closures, crashing oil prices and widespread disruptions to other major industries have some Trump supporters concerned that the virus is triggering a new financial crisis that could hurt Trumps bid for a second term more than any political test hes faced so far.

The economic ramifications of the coronavirus are increasingly likely to weigh heavily on Trumps re-election chances and quite possibly could cost him re-election, says Republican donor Dan Eberhart.

One recent historical precedent in particular troubles Trumps close allies. After the housing bubble precipitated an economic meltdown in 2008, voters turned from incumbent Republicans to opposition Democrats in that falls election, voting Barack Obama into the White House and sending Democratic majorities to both the House and the Senate. The parallels to 2008 are especially frightening from my vantage point right now, Eberhart says.

Some Republicans privately concede that the Administrations response has not inspired confidence. Trump has repeatedly downplayed the threat from the virus in press briefings, saying on Feb. 26, for example, that the risk to Americans remains very low and may not get bigger. He contradicted his own experts in saying that the the virus can be contained and its spread in the U.S. is not inevitable. U.S. public health officials were late to pivot from a strategy of containing to virus to one of mitigating its impact, and Trump Administration officials fell behind understanding how pervasive the virus is inside the U.S. because the initial set of tests designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) didnt work well enough.

If he cant and his government doesnt get a handle on this thing and start to show some competence, yeah, there could absolutely be electoral fallout in November, says Reed Galen, an independent political strategist who was deputy campaign manager for John McCains unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign, which was hampered by McCains mishandling of the economic swoon that fall.

Trumps re-election campaign is emphasizing the actions the President has taken to contain the virus so far, from tapping Vice President Mike Pence to lead the government response to the virus to restricting travel to the U.S. from China, South Korea, Italy and Iran. Public health officials, including Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director at the CDC, believe the travel restrictions bought valuable time for the U.S. to prepare for the rise in COVID-19 cases. But some of that time was squandered by a flawed roll out of test kits, which has limited the U.S. ability to detect the domestic spread of the virus. State and local labs are still facing shortages of tests.

Keep up to date with our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking here.

If there was any doubt that the virus will be a key campaign issue, polling shows that COVID-19 has already become one of the top news events of the last 10 years in Americans minds, according to a Public Opinion Strategies poll published Monday. So far, public opinion is mixed on whether the country is prepared for a broader outbreak, with 49% of Americans believing the country is ready and 46% saying they dont believe the nation is prepared.

Trump has been keenly focused on the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. On Friday, while touring the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Trump said he would rather the passengers aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship remained aboard offshore, even as public health officials planned for the ship to dock and passengers to disembark. I like the numbers being where they are. I dont need to have the numbers double because of one ship, Trump said.

Trump has pushed White House aides to develop a package of aggressive measures to stimulate the economy, including a payroll tax cut, relief for hourly wage workers, loans for small businesses, and bailouts for the cruise-ship industry and airlines, he told reporters in the White House briefing room Monday night. Those steps, which werent ready to release Monday, will be presented to lawmakers on Tuesday, Trump said, and will be very dramatic.

We are going to take care of and have been taking care of the American public and the American economy, Trump said, adding: Its not our countrys fault. This is something we were thrown into and were going to handle it.

Trump has been resistant to scaling back his activities as a precaution even as several Republican officials have announced plans to self-quarantine including Trumps newly named chief of staff, former North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows following interactions at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference with an infected individual. Trump himself had contact with two Republican congressman, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, before both lawmakers announced on Monday they were isolating themselves for 14 days. Collins shook hands with Trump at the CDC on Friday and Gaetz rode on Air Force One with Trump on Monday. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Monday evening that Trump hasnt been tested for COVID-19 because he has neither had prolonged close contact with any known confirmed COVID-19 patients, nor does he have any symptoms.

Nor has Trump slowed down his campaign activities at a moment when many big public events are being canceled to stem the spread of the virus. On Monday, Trump attended a $4 million fundraiser with 300 people at a private home in Longwood, Fla. Hes held six rallies in the past month. When he toured the CDC on Friday, his red campaign hat was perched on his head, Trump said hed continue to hold rallies and it doesnt bother him to have thousands of supporters standing close together in an arena. The campaign is proceeding as normal, said Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for Trumps re-election campaign. We announce events when they are ready to be announced. The President held a rally last week, then a town hall, and fundraisers this week and over the weekend.

Trumps campaign strategy involves boosting turnout among Republicans, but if the public health crisis extends to Election Day on Nov. 3, it could potentially suppress the number of voters willing to go to the polls. In the meantime, the campaign has sought to blame Democrats for criticizing the Trump Administrations handling of the virus response. What is not helpful is the politicization of the coronavirus, which is exactly what Democrats are doing on Capitol Hill and on the campaign trail. Once again, we see politicians trying to scare people to score political points. Its reckless and irresponsible, said Kayleigh McEnany, the Trump campaigns national press secretary, in an email.

Whats clear is that a President who has been in permanent campaign mode since the first day of his term is keenly aware of the stakes. What we know is from natural disasters is the way a political leader handles a disaster can make or break a campaign, says Whit Ayers, a Republican pollster at North Star Opinion Research. Focus on the performance and the poll numbers will take care of themselves. Trumps performance is still unfolding, but one thing he knows for certain is that voters are watching.

With reporting by Alana Abramson/Washington

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Why Coronavirus May Be the Biggest Threat Yet to Donald Trump's Re-Election - TIME

Prince Harry appears to have been duped into discussing Donald Trump, Prince Andrew and his resignation from the royal family by two Russian YouTubers posing as climate change activist Greta Thunberg.

Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov, who run the YouTube channel Vovan222prank, posted a now-deleted video purporting to contain recordings of Prince Harry taken from two separate phone calls on New Years Eve and January 22.

The pair posed as Thunberg and her father, Svante, and apparently lured the outgoing British royal into a sprawling conversation about politics and his personal life. Kuznetsov and Stolyarov have previously targeted Joe Biden.

Prince Harrys representatives and Buckingham Palace have so far declined comment, but have not disputed the veracity of the recordings, according to multiple reports.

Related StoryMSNBC Guest Sparks Anger After Comparing Meghan Markle To 'Trailer Trash'

In the recordings, which were obtained by British tabloids The Sun and The Daily Mail, Prince Harry reportedly said Trump has blood on his hands because he is promoting the coal industry. He added: Trump will want to meet you to make him look better but he wont want to have a discussion about climate change with you because you will outsmart him.

On his and Meghan Markles decision to step down from their royal duties, Prince Harry said: I can assure you, marrying a Prince or Princess is not all its made out to be. But sometimes the right decision isnt always the easy one. And this decision certainly wasnt the easy one but it was the right decision for our family, the right decision to be able to protect my son.

He also distanced himself from Prince Andrew, who has faced searching questions about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. I have very little to say on that. But whatever he has done or hasnt done, is completely separate from me and my wife, Prince Harry said.

On British prime minister Boris Johnson, he reportedly added: I think he is a good man, so you are one of few people who can reach into his soul and get him to feel and believe in you. But you have to understand that because he has been around for so long like all of these other people, they are already set in their ways. They believe what they want to believe, they believe what they have been told. So that is what youre up against, up against changing habits, as you know.

The prank is potentially embarrassing for Prince Harry and the royal family, who remain scrupulously politically neutral.

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Prince Harry Apparently Duped Into Saying Trump Has Blood On His Hands By Russian Pranksters Posing As Greta Thunberg - Deadline

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) is introduced by White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow during an Opportunity Zone conference with state, local, tribal and community leaders, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Mark Wilson | Getty Images

The leaders of the biggest U.S. banks are scheduled to meet with President Donald Trumpon Wednesday afternoon as the U.S. government grapples with the spread of the coronavirus.

CEOs expected to attend the 3 p.m. ET event include Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, Michael Corbat of Citigroup, Charles Scharf of Wells Fargo, David Solomon of Goldman Sachs and Stephen Schwarzman of alternative investments giant Blackstone.

Gordon Smith, co-president of JPMorgan Chase, the biggest U.S. bank, will attend in place of CEO Jamie Dimon, who is recovering from heart surgery. Ken Griffin, the CEO of hedge fund Citadel, is also expected to attend. Other attendees expected include the CEOs of large regional lenders U.S. Bancorp and Truist, and the heads of the American Bankers Association and the Consumer Bankers Association.

Trump is expected to ask the CEOs what steps the banks are taking to help small- and medium-size companies weather the impacts of the coronavirus, particularly as loans come due, said people with knowledge of the matter.

Another topic will be how banks can contribute to the proper functioning of markets during the tumult caused by the disease, and if the administration can offer short-term regulatory changes to assist in this area. Markets have been whipsawed as investors come to grips with the widening financial and societal impact of COVID-19.

One CEO not expected to attend is Morgan Stanley's James Gorman, who recently engineered a $13 billion takeover of E-Trade. Unlike the other banks, Morgan Stanley doesn't have a significant presence lending to small businesses.

This is not the first time that Trump has leaned on financial leaders during rocky times: He called the heads of the biggest U.S. lenders last year as markets tumbled.

With reporting from CNBC's Eamon Javers and Dawn Giel.

Continued here:

Bank CEOs convene in Washington for meeting with President Trump on coronavirus response - CNBC

Trump has yet to adopt all these policies. But the fallout from the global outbreak, which coincides with his reelection bid, could motivate him to do so. Coronavirus is the intersection of 3 issues @realDonaldTrump has been right about all along: border control, American manufacturing, China hawk, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted recently, in a preview of a possible campaign message.

Read: The strongest evidence yet that America is botching coronavirus testing

And, if implemented, such policies could upend global supply chains and renew a push to unwind economic integration between the worlds two largest economies, which could significantly reverse globalization. (This had slowed somewhat after the U.S. and China struck an interim trade agreement in January.) Globalism, with its unwieldy and complex systems tied to yet more complex systems, could be the biggest casualty in the war on the coronavirus, Curtis Ellis, the policy director of America First Policies, the nonprofit arm of a pro-Trump super PAC, wrote last month.

These arguments have been echoed by China hard-liners in Congress. In response to the coronavirus outbreak, Rubio and another Republican senator, Josh Hawley, have proposed separate bills to lessen Americas reliance on China for medical supplies. Whether the administration will support these initiatives isnt clear. During a congressional hearing last month, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said he shared Rubios concern about Americas reliance on China for active pharmaceutical ingredients. Yet he cautioned that disentangling globalized supply chains in favor of domestic manufacturing cant be accomplished overnight and could raise health-care costs for Americans.

Rubio has previously warned of the risks that China poses to the U.S. health-care industry and challenged Beijing on numerous issues, including its efforts to suppress pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. He told me that the depletion of Americas manufacturing sector has left us with a huge national-security vulnerability, necessitating a 21st-century, pro-American industrial policy.

The bids to break free from Americas bonds with Beijing, moreover, go well beyond the medical sector. Mac Thornberry, the ranking Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee, has stated that while we want to get coronavirus contained [and] eliminated as fast as we can maybe we can also take this opportunity to reduce Americas reliance on China for defense-related products and components.

When I asked Rubio why he was taking a more confrontational approach to China during a global emergency that seemed to call for international cooperation, he maintained that the Chinese Communist Party has proven it is not a reliable or responsible global power.

China impeded efforts of international researchers and failed to share information on the source of the virus or best practices, he said. Their Communist Party is more interested in saving face and stamping out internal dissent [than] in helping [to] prevent the spread of [this] dangerous disease.

Read more from the original source:

China Hawks Are Calling the Coronavirus a Wake-Up Call - The Atlantic

Donald Trump Jr. Photo: EPA/FRANCIS R. MALASIG

Donald Trump Jr wrote on Twitter on Tuesday that he agrees with a suggestion by Republican senator David Perdue that the US should reconsider its presence in Kosovo if Pristina does not agree to fully revoke its 100 per cent tariffs on imports from Serbia.

There are 650 US troops in Kosovo. Time to get them home, said Trump Jr, who holds no official position in the US administration but is executive vice-president of his fathers Trump Organisation.

Senator Perdues comments stepped up the pressure on the Pristina authorities over the tariffs.

For over two decades, US forces have helped keep the peace between Kosovo & Serbia. Now, with historic progress in sight, Kosovo must do its part & abolish all duties imposed on Serbia. If Kosovo is not fully committed to peace, then the US should reconsider its presence there, Perdue wrote on Twitter.

Significantly for Kosovo politicians, Perdues message was retweeted by Trumps envoy for Kosovo-Serbia peace negotiations, Richard Grenell.

Grenell warned last week after Kosovos Prime Minister Albin Kurti said the tariffs on imports of Serbian products would only be gradually removed that the US would not waste our assistance if Kosovos leadership kept harming its people this way.

Kurtis proposal has not yet been agreed with his Vetevendosje (Self-Determination) partys junior governing partners, the Democratic League of Kosovo. The proposal has been dismissed by Serbia as a fraudulent and dishonest.

Suggestions that the US military could possibly pull out of Kosovo have sparked alarm among some politicians in the country.

President Hashim Thaci on Tuesday urged Kurtis government to call an emergency session to lift the tariffs. Thaci wrote on Facebook that the future of our country is in question.

The leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo, Isa Mustafa, sent his envoy Skender Hyseni to talk to Grenell about the issue.

After the talks, Hyseni said that he was told that Kosovo must find a solution or risk further tension with the US.

The White House and ambassador Grenell strongly urge the immediate and unconditional lifting of tariffs on goods from Serbia to pave the way for a Kosovo-Serbia dialogue that should and will be concluded with mutual recognition, Hyseni wrote on Facebook.

He said that he was told by Grenell that America cannot continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on military and other aid and projects in a place where the government works against the interests of its citizens.

US troops have been in Kosovo as part of NATOs KFOR peacekeeping mission since the war ended 1999.

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Donald Trump Junior Urges US Troop Withdrawal from Kosovo - Balkan Insight

David Plouffe got it very wrong in 2016.

After confidently predicting Donald Trumps defeat, the campaign manager credited with Barack Obamas historic 2008 victory watched a reality-television star become commander in chief. Four years later, Plouffe says he rewatched that Election Night. Over and over.

And after absorbing the lessons of that day, hes written a book on what Democrats need to do to defeat Trumpa reelection battle that, as he told Edward-Isaac Dovere on the latest episode of The Ticket: Politics From The Atlantic, probably has the biggest stakes the countrys ever known. They discuss the presidents reelection campaign, the state of the Democratic Party, and a nomination fight thats suddenly become a two-man race.

Listen to the full episode here:

Subscribe to The Ticket: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher (How to Listen)

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The Ticket: Beating Donald Trump, With David Plouffe - The Atlantic

Mar 7th 2020

WASHINGTON, DC

AMERICAS GOVERNMENT, as all its citizens learn at school, comprises three branches: executive, legislative and judicial. At the top of the executive branch sits the actual executivethe president. But the branch also includes an array of agencies, both the departments represented in the cabinet, and othersincluding the National Security Council and the Council of Economic Advisersthat make up the Executive Office of the President (EOP). These agencies advise on and implement presidential policy. Most of the EOP gets repopulated with a change in administration, as it should: new presidents have new policy agendas, which require new personnel.

The exception to that rule is the EOPs biggest office: the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Most of its 500-odd employees are career civil servants who take pride in providing nonpartisan advice to presidents of both parties. In 1921 Charles Dawes, the first head of the OMBs predecessor agency, the Bureau of the Budget, explained that if Congress passed a law that garbage should be put on the White House steps, it would be our regrettable duty, as a bureau, in an impartial, nonpolitical and nonpartisan way, to advise the executive and Congress as to how the largest amount of garbage could be spread in the most expeditious and economical manner. Russell Vought, the OMBs acting director, calls his office the presidents Swiss army knife. It has been central to Donald Trumps efforts to loosen environmental regulations and to cut budgets. It also played a role in the Ukraine scandal.

When Congress refused to appropriate adequate funds for Mr Trumps border wall, OMB found it. When the government shut down in 2018-19, the OMB found ways for the Internal Revenue Service to send out tax refunds, and for the Department of Agriculture to provide food stamps. The OMBs job is to understand the mechanics of federal-government operations, and explain to the president and his staff how to get things done. Its titular head is Mick Mulvaney, who is also the presidents chief of staff, but Mr Vought, a former Hill staffer and vice-president of Heritage Action, a conservative policy-advocacy group, has operational control.

The OMB staff often have backgrounds in law or public policy, and tend to like their work: for the past five years, the OMB has ranked in the top quartile of small federal agencies in the Partnership for Public Services Best Places to Work in the Federal Government survey. (It had dipped early in the Obama administration; Peter Orszag, Mr Obamas first OMB director, was widely disliked.) One senior official in a previous administration praised the offices civil servants: I thought they were just so good, so knowledgeable. They were stubbornish about making clear what they thought, but they also did a lot of, Well, if you want to do that stupid thing, heres how you do it.

As the B in the offices name suggests, one of OMBs chief duties is to write the presidents annual budget, in consultation with agencies from across the federal government. Because Congress, not the executive, appropriates funds, the presidents budget is an expression of wishes, not an allocation of funds. To translate the presidents policy priorities into budgetary terms, the OMBs Resource Management Offices (RMOs), organised by broad oversight areas, weigh competing interests from different parts of government. For the Trump administration, that meant proposing a 27% cut in the funding of the Environmental Protection Agency and a 21% cut in the State Department this year.

Another duty, as the M suggests, is managerial. Once a budget passesor, as has grown increasingly common, there is a continuing resolution, that merely keeps current funding levels constantthe OMB advises and evaluates agency performance. The OMB also oversees a range of federal functions, including procurement, IT, personnel and financial management.

Within the OMB sits the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). OIRA reviews agencies proposed regulatory changes, ensuring that benefits outweigh costs, and, for new regulations, that agencies have fully considered non-regulatory alternatives to achieve their stated goals.

OIRA has been central to Mr Trumps deregulatory effort. Just days after his inauguration, the president issued an executive order requiring two regulations to be repealed for every new one introduced. In October his administration estimated that it had actually cut eight and a half regulations for every new one. Some take issue with how Mr Trumps OIRA conducts cost-benefit analysis of these regulations. Richard Revesz of NYU Law School argues that in its deregulatory zeal, the Trump administration has made a mockery of cost-benefit analysis [by] weighing broader indirect costs [of regulation], and insisting on ignoring any indirect benefits. In delaying Obama-era environmental regulations, for instance, he argues that the administration has ignored or downplayed unquantified benefits, such as long-term improvements to air and water quality, while overstating the costs of compliance to industry.

In its keenness to deregulate, OIRA has sometimes got in its own way. According to the Institute for Policy Integrity, a think-tank, the administration has won just five of the 71 court challenges it has faced over deregulation and other agency policy.

Although Mr Vought says morale at the OMB remains healthy, one recently retired veteran demurs. Career staff were asked [] give us options to do X. They would lay out a range of options, including ones they thought would be extreme enough to be a non-starter, and usually they chose the non-starter. The department has also become unusually high-profile for the wrong reasons: it was the OMBs associate director for national security programmes, Michael Duffey, who told the Pentagon that there was clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold military aid to Ukraine.

In January the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a non-partisan auditor, found that this action violated federal law. Mr Vought disputes that: he believes that the OMB had the right to delay funding, and that the GAOs analysis stems partly from partisan animus (the GAO answers to Congress rather than the president). He also notes that the White House has delayed other tranches of foreign aid, such as to Pakistan and Gaza, over policy concerns.

When not getting rid of regulations and holding up military aid to allies, the OMB has been doing the sort of good-government things it might have done under any administration, streamlining the federal grantmaking process or implementing a law which encourages government to use data better when drafting policy. Another ex-employee says he is impressed with peoples ability to continue to do their job even when the interest in a fair process isnt being respected by the leadership of the administration. Which is about as pejorative as a retired civil servant can be.

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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "The toolkit"

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Donald Trumps toolkit - The Economist

The Lincoln Project a group of anti-Trump Republicans on Friday hit the president with a montage of his most insulting, offensive and ridiculous gaffes.

The group of which prominent Trump critic George Conway is a member released the supercut that contrasts Trumps speeches to those of previous presidents in response to a similar GOP attack on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden over his own gaffes.

Every day is a new chance for Trump to debase himself further and embarrass Americans of all political stripes, Republican strategist Rick Wilson wrote in a fundraising email featuring the footage.

Check out the video here:

Wilson said the hardest part of making the ad was fitting all of Trumps own gaffes, abuse of the English language, insults, lies and crazy talk into 30 or even 60 seconds.

We will not allow Trump and his propaganda machine to gaslight America into believing hes anything other than the most unserious, indecent, least inspiring president weve ever had, he concluded. Do not let a single lie stand.

Continue reading here:

GOP Group Hits Donald Trump With Supercut Of His Offensive, Ridiculous Statements - HuffPost

Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford

I know Joe Biden. Not well, but well enough to have a good chat when we ran into one another at the Irish embassy in Washington on St. Patricks Day last year. I must also confess to rather liking Mr. Biden. In 2015, I argued that he would win if he ran the next year.

Yet, in 2020, there has been something about his campaign that has been, well, off. One example: He was speaking last Monday at a campaign event in Texas. The crowd was fired up; their man had been on a roll since winning South Carolina two days earlier. And this is what he said: We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are ... created by the ... go ... you know, you know, the thing.

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I hope you dont need me to tell you that Thomas Jeffersons preamble to the declaration of independence is a little more eloquent than that.

Earlier this year, The Atlantic ran a sympathetic story about Mr. Bidens boyhood stutter, suggesting that this was the reason for his verbal stumbles although Mr. Biden himself kept telling the author that this wasnt the problem.

Mr. Biden is 77 years old and it really, really shows which only adds to the mystery of his political comeback. Prior to his victory in South Carolina on Feb. 29, Mr. Biden appeared to be out of it in both senses. By Wednesday morning, he was back where he began last year: the front-runner. Not only did Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar drop out last week, but they promptly pledged their support to Mr. Biden. Most recently, former Democratic hopefuls Kamala Harris and Cory Booker have endorsed the former vice-president.

There have been primary comebacks before; indeed, an election year is incomplete without at least one. I remember vividly, as one of John McCains advisers in 2008, glumly anticipating his exit from the race only for his almost-broke campaign to turn around and propel him to the nomination after he won New Hampshire. It was that same state that made Bill Clinton the comeback kid in 1992.

But Mr. Biden lost New Hampshire, finishing in ignominious fifth place. To find a comeback this late in the game, you need to go back to the 1996 Republican nomination contest, when veteran Kansas senator Bob Dole went into the South Carolina primary having lost three states to the conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan.

The kingmaker then was Carroll Campbell, the states popular Republican governor. Just as House majority whip and South Carolina representative Jim Clyburn did for Mr. Biden, Mr. Campbell went all in for Mr. Dole, signalling to the voters in the state and nationally that he alone had a shot at beating the incumbent president. Mr. Dole won South Carolina easily, after which he won every remaining contest with the exception of the Missouri caucuses.

Of course, Mr. Dole went on to lose to Bill Clinton, so this is an analogy Mr. Biden would probably prefer to have a senior moment about. Yet, I am not so sure he would lose to Donald Trump if nominated.

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The other key take away from last week is that the majority of black voters backed Mr. Biden last week and not just in South Carolina. As the brilliant African-American writer Coleman Hughes tweeted: The fact that black voters went overwhelming for Biden is only surprising if youre unaware that black dem voters are way more conservative than white dem voters. The progressive activist class may feel itself to be channeling black Americas politics, but its not.

In the coming months, the virulence and lethality of COVID-19 will almost certainly matter more than Mr. Bidens charm and incoherence. A large outbreak in a U.S. state and/or a recession caused by the global shock of the potential pandemic could make Mr. Trump a one-term President.

St. Patricks Day is nine days away. If the luck of the Irish holds, Mr. Trump is about to be hit by a cross between Hurricane Katrina and Lehman Brothers, and the man he derides as Sleepy Joe will duly oust him from the White House.

And if COVID-19 hits only the Democratic states of the coasts? If the economy stalls for a quarter but doesnt crash? If the message sticks in the Midwest that the epidemic was a hoax? Then I fear we are in for one of the least intelligible concession speeches in you know, the thing.

Joe Biden hopes to take a big step toward the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday when six states cast votes, while Bernie Sanders aims for an upset win in Michigan that would keep his White House hopes alive. Reuters

Niall Ferguson/The Sunday Times, London.

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Opinion: Sleepy Joe Biden has given Donald Trump a wake-up call - The Globe and Mail